1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to assembleable landing pads for helicopters, and more particularly to such pads which are adapted to be packed up and transported from a storage or installation site for deployment at another location.
2. Prior Art
Many helicopter applications, for example, agricultural, cargo and passenger transportation, construction, fire control, forestry, law enforcement, military, power and pipe line patrol, and search and rescue operations, necessitate flying to and from unimproved off-airport locations. Some of these missions call for, or would be facilitated by, establishing a prepared landing site. In some instances, merely providing a relatively level clearing is sufficient. In others, particularly where the ground itself is muddy, or covered with loose debris, or otherwise unsuitable, or where the same site is to be used repeatedly, a portable landing pad which can be transported to the remote location by helicopter, truck, or boat and set up as a temporary, semi-permanent, or permanent helicopter landing pad or "heliport" would be invaluable. This invention is intended to provide such a landing pad.
I am not aware of any existing device or system which will serve this purpose. While the use of wire mesh, perforated, and expanded metal sheets as parking ramp, taxiway and runway ground cover for fixed and rotary wing aircraft is well known, the weight and size of such sheets makes storing quantities of them in readiness for use awkward and transporting and maneuvering stacks or rolls of them by helicopter difficult and dangerous. Additionally, conventional practice is either to connect adjacent sheets using whatever materials or hardware are available, or to retain them in place by means of stakes driven into the ground. Neither of these methods is suitable for heliport use, and no hardware exists that I am aware of which serves to both connect and anchor such sheets of ground covering material.